Built in 1828, the Ashtabula is deemed to be a great example of a plantation house constructed for a Charleston family in the Upstate. It was originally owned by Lewis Ladson Gibbes of Charleston and his wife, Maria Drayton of the Drayton Hall and the nice of Arthur Middleton.

When the couple died even before the completion of the frame house that they called the Ashtabula, it was sold to a new set of owners which allowed it to produce the ?world?s record for rice? and the published diary of the life on the plantation.

Donated in 1961 to the Pendleton Historic Foundation by the Mead Paper Company, the Ashtabula was then transformed into a historic house museum complete with Antebellum furniture pieces.